U of Louisville Med & Dental Schools Integrate Handhelds

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, November 14, 2002 11:38:18 AM

The University of Louisville is among of the first universities in the nation to make Palm handhelds part of its curricula. The university's School of Medicine and School of Dentistry have purchased and distributed 1,100 Palm handhelds to students. The university is a nationally recognized leader in healthcare with a reputation for leading-edge medical research and breakthrough medical treatments.

The purchase of the handhelds is an integral part of the university's strategy to more closely connect students to patient care in all aspects of the curriculum -- from academic studies traditionally dominated by lecture-style learning to hands-on clinical training.

"Most national medical organizations and educators agree that active, self-directed learning facilitates retention," says Ruth B. Greenberg, Ph.D., director of academic programs at the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center and director of the Office of Curriculum Development and Evaluation. "With handheld technology, we can create opportunities for students to become more actively engaged in their learning even in basic science classes. We can introduce them to clinical concepts from the first day they enter medical school rather than waiting until the third and fourth years of clinical work where handhelds are more commonly used."

Greenberg believes that students need to understand the role technology will play in their professional lives and be comfortable using the same tools they will use as practicing physicians and dentists.

"Handhelds are the future," she says. "They are sophisticated tools that can instantly connect healthcare professionals to the up-to-date resources they need at the point of patient care. This immediate access to information is a tremendous benefit and timesaver, especially in the era of managed healthcare, where time is a premium. Students shouldn't have to wait until their clinical rotations to use technology that is becoming prevalent."

The purchase of Palm m500 handhelds follows the medical school's one-year study of third-year students using Palm handhelds in their clinical rotations. Greenberg believes it's one of the first formal investigations of a large group using handhelds in medical education. More than 135 students, faculty and preceptors who oversee clinical rotations participated in the study, which confirmed what Greenberg expected -- handhelds are a valuable tool in medical education. More than 40 percent of the group used handhelds regularly in their clinical work, tapping into such resources as the ePocrates drug interaction database and the 5 Minute Clinical Consult, a reference tool that contains information on approximately 1,000 clinical topics, including basics, diagnostics, treatments, medications, and follow-up.

The university's Health Sciences center also plans to build a robust infrastructure to maximize the use of the handhelds and provide content and new applications to students via HotSync(R) stations. When students place their handhelds in the HotSync station cradle, applications and data can be downloaded onto their handhelds at the touch of a button. The university is using Novell ZENworks for Handhelds, a handheld systems management product from Novell, Inc., to centrally manage and update software applications, enabling the school to reduce the cost of providing IT support while keeping students and faculty up-to-date. The Palm handhelds were purchased from CDW Government Inc. (CDW-G), a leading provider of technology products and services for educational institutions and government agencies. CDW-G is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDW Computer Centers, Inc.

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m500's

Beavis @ 11/14/2002 12:03:21 PM #

Palm must be giving some sweet deals on m500 handhelds to companies lately. First Lexus, now U of L.

RE: m500's

markgm @ 11/14/2002 12:23:18 PM #

I'm curious to know whether palm is creating new m500's or just clearing out old inventory. As a college student, I have relied on my handhelds extensivly to sort my day!

so what?

dakernels @ 11/14/2002 5:26:48 PM #

I'm not sure what the news is here. My medical school has been giving all the incoming students laptops and palm Vx's for the past 4 years.

RE: so what?

john_gpjm @ 11/15/2002 12:38:06 AM #

Yeap...i guess most medical uni's have been using palmtops for years. I'm just wondering if they have a special intergrated program so that the palms are intergrated with the medical curriculum. Perhaps this is the first one...

RE: so what?

anjrober1 @ 11/15/2002 8:40:52 AM #

Actually there are a number of medical schools with varying degrees of integrated courses. Harvard, Suny Downstate, USC Keck and Buffalo are only a few. You can find some cases studies at www.arcstream.com. We (ArcStream) are a wireless systems integration firm that develops vertically focused applications, med schools being one of those. Frequent solutions include course content distribution, patient encounter capture, survey and evaluations, etc.

RE: so what?

devildoc @ 11/15/2002 11:57:42 AM #

I'm not sure what the big deal is either. They're not doing anything that USC, UCLA and many other schools are already doing. EXCEPT......

Requiring students to purchase [even if students don't pay directly, it is included in their tuition, they pay] a device as MS-1s [many schools require an 8MB PamOS device by the end of MS-2]. I would be interested in seeing their study of MS-3s that justified Palm devices for MS-1s. There is a huge difference between MS-1s and MS-3s and given the huge advances that can occur over a two year period, I would be interested in knowing how these advances are going to be integrated.

RE: so what?

Tuckermaclain @ 11/15/2002 6:50:21 PM #

My residency used them quite alot--first as individuals, then officially to track procedures. A staff member @ Walter-Reed help set up our offical program. A die-hard Palm-Geek (like most of us) he had IR ports @ Walter-Reed posted so that residents/ staff and med studs could hot-sync anywhere and update their inpatient lists, post notes to charts, and update clinic schedules. This was in '97. He had every palm device available as well as a PPC. The coolest at the time was a TRG Pro w/ 1GB microdrive. Medical people in general have embraced handhelds, and it would seem that the Palm platform is better suited for information handling than the other. It sure was nice to chuck all those little (and big) books from our lab coat pockets. Having said that, I agree that this first post is nothing revolutionary, as any of us can site his/her school/training facility as one that did it earlier. Hooray for Palms! They make my life much easier.

RE: so what?

emtnky @ 11/20/2002 10:18:23 AM #

How could you be using a TRGPro in 1997 if, TRG did not even sign a license agreement with Palm until 10/99, and did not release the TRGPro until the end of 1999. I can not stand people who try to talk about things that they do not know about.